TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics » Random House

Random House’s Hydra changes contract terms

Susan Lulgjuraj — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 01:34:16 +0000

Many publishing insiders and authors have been discussing Random House over the past week. The company might wish it had stayed out of the news as criticisms came down over its digital imprints, especially Hydra, which handles science fiction. In case you missed the news, here’s the basic version: Contract specifications for Hydra were made [...]

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Two David and Goliath stories with happy endings

Joanna Cabot — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 22:09:12 +0000

TeleRead has earlier covered two stories about some bad publishing experiments: The first was about the scammy contracts Random House was offering authors who signed with their digital-only imprint. The second was about a Canadian newspaper, the National Post, which was trying to extract ‘licensing’ payments from readers who were trying to quote from their [...]

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DOJ Approves Penguin Random House Merger

Juli Monroe — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 20:37:01 +0000

One hurdle down. Several more to go with the EU, Canadian Competition Bureau and various other antitrust authorities around the world still needing to weigh in on this. Penguin’s settlement with the Justice Department was a move to smooth the way for this merger, and it looks like that move worked. Note that Random House, [...]

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Penguin, Random House Merger Shows E-Books Dominate

Paul St John Mackintosh — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 15:00:46 +0000

So two of the largest publishers in the world are merging their book arms entirely to deal with “this exciting, fast-moving world of digital books and digital readers,” to quote Pearson CEO Marjorie Scardino. Could there be any clearer proof that e-books are where the action is, and that the print-only model is truly over? [...]

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Libraries Do Not ‘Own’ Random House E-Books After All

Chris Meadows — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 04:20:36 +0000

Last week we carried a story about a claim that Random House was going to let libraries “own” its e-books. However, it turns out that “own” may have been an optimistic oversimplification. Peter Brantley, Director of the Bookserver Project at the Internet Archive, writes at Publishers Weekly that he’s had some follow-up discussion with Skip [...]

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What I got for my $18: A Kindle Case Study

Joanna Cabot — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 01:52:09 +0000

I try to keep my Kindle spending to $10 or less per book—partly for budgetary reasons, and partly because I find most e-books so error-filled that I resent paying so much money just to copy-edit them myself. When I wrote about the errors in JK Rowling’s new hardback-priced bestseller, I made the point that if [...]

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Judge denies Apple, publisher motions to dismiss class-action price-fixing suit

Chris Meadows — Wed, 16 May 2012 03:58:29 +0000

Hot on the heels of the filing I mentioned yesterday, the judge in the publisher/Apple price-fixing class action has issued a 56-page ruling (PDF). It’s important to note that this is only a preliminary ruling on Apple and the publishers’ motion to have the case thrown out. It doesn’t mean they’re necessarily guilty. As such, [...]

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New details come to light in agency pricing class-action lawsuit

Chris Meadows — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:32:07 +0000

The hits just keep on coming. On PaidContent, Laura Hazard Owen writes about a new filing in a class-action lawsuit against the agency pricing publishers that reveals some previously redacted evidence in the case shedding light on the agency pricing negotiations. This is the suit in which a number of states (now up to 31 [...]

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Amazon Publishing acquires North American James Bond print and e-book rights

Chris Meadows — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 06:15:03 +0000

The name is Zon. Ama Zon. In 2010, the Fleming estate chose not to renew its publishing contract with Penguin for the James Bond novels, and proceeded to release them electronically in the UK via Amazon, Waterstones, and other e-book retailers. In March of this year, Random imprint Vintage Books acquired the world publishing rights [...]

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Big Six publishers decline to renew contract with Amazon over unfavorable terms

Chris Meadows — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 07:39:00 +0000

Salon Magazine has an extremely lengthy story looking at Amazon, and bringing up a couple of points I hadn’t heard about before. In main, the article looks at Amazon’s habit of making quiet but substantial grants to various small independent publishing organizations, totaling about $1 million per year. Is it done to support indie publishing, [...]

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Some publishers more willing to settle with DOJ than others over e-book pricing

Chris Meadows — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 16:49:39 +0000

The Wall Street Journal has some further news on the putative e-book pricing settlement in the US Justice Department and European Commission joint anti-trust investigation of the “Agency Five” publishers plus Apple. Anonymous sources have told the Journal that three publishers are inclined to settle and two others (plus Apple) are holding out. HarperCollins, Hachette, [...]

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Nova Scotia libraries boycott Random House over e-book price hike

Chris Meadows — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 03:21:41 +0000

CBC News reports that some Nova Scotia libraries have begun boycotting Random House over a change to Random House’s e-book pricing for libraries. Earlier this year, Random House announced its plans to raise the prices on e-books bought for library loans, and despite an ALA statement asking the publisher not to do so, put it [...]

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Thanks to e-books, publishers’ revenues are down but profits are up

Chris Meadows — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 01:31:07 +0000

The other day, I mentioned a survey showing that the growth of e-books has reduced the overall value of the book publishing market in the UK, and wondered what the figures might look like for the US. While the figures don’t measure precisely the same thing, Laura Hazard Owen reports on PaidContent that some figures [...]

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Mike Shatzkin: Bookstores’ decision not to carry Amazon books could be wise move

Chris Meadows — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 05:52:06 +0000

Are Barnes & Noble, Books a Million, and Indigo making a wise move by not carrying the books from Amazon’s publishing arm, or are they cutting off their noses to spite their faces? This is the question that Mike Shatzkin addresses in his latest column. He notes that a reporter contacted him, undoubtedly expecting the [...]

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Kobo announces publishing arm, signs e-reader sales deal with UK bookstore chain W H Smith

Chris Meadows — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:44:44 +0000

As Amazon goes, so goes Kobo? A report from CBC suggests that would seem to be the case. Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis says that Kobo is developing a publishing arm to offer complete publishing services (including editing and design) for authors who would like to publish through it. It’s not clear from the article whether [...]

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